Sylvia's Journal

Axel may have gotten over his fears of India, and Delhi in particular. We are resting briefly in between two program elements. We completed the tour of Delhi and are now waiting for another part of our programmed ‘India Experience.’

The travel agent put together a tour of a few of Delhi’s treasures rather than a race to see as many as possible. After March 15 we can come back for more. The day time tour included a visit to the big mosque, a rickshaw tour of the tiny alleyways of Delhi, a visit to the Ghandi memorial, including a hi-tech/hi-touch media show that he probably would have disapproved of (but fun for kids).

The low point of our day was a visit to a tourist trap where a nice gentleman from Kashmir tried to sell us carpets, and after he understood that we have no great need for expensive carpets in a place like Afghanistan, he tried gemstones; After I indicated that I wear no jewelry he tried pashmina and kasmiri shawls; but the stuff is sold closer to our home (probably for a little less). He still didn’t give up selling us something but we left when we realized we had wasted precious time holding off the salesman’s advances and would have to make a choice between Humayoon’s tomb and the Qtub complex. We chose the latter.

We were dazzled by the Qtub buildings. Never have I seen such an amalgamation of building materials from various religious traditions, on such a scale, and with such intricate carvings. I now wished I had the History of the Khyber Pass under my arm as much what produced such architecture is intricately linked to what happened in Afghanistan and further west.

For lunch our guide took us to a restaurant (Pindi) located in what looked like a gated community neighborhood. He helped us picked two great dishes (another thing Axel is now less worried about) and then left. We ate our lunch while above my head Kansas battled Oklahoma for a place in the college basketball competition.

Dinner was in one of the government employee housing complexes, with Ankit, his fiancée and his mother. We barely saw the mother because she was busy producing one tray full of chapattis after another. Ankit is an employee of the firm that is responsible for our India experience. He and his fiancée will marry later this year. They are both part of a new young middle class whose parents left their rural roots to make it in the big city and modern India. They did. It was a neat introduction to some of the basic dynamics that are transforming this place.

I was so engrossed in my new Quaker sampler, cross stitching until I was cross eyed and had to buy (yes, really) a pair of +2.00 Cross eyeglasses from the KLM tax free trolley so that I could see the 2 tiny strands around which the stitches crossed. It made the 8 hours of the AMS-DEL trip go by so fast that we had landed before I realized we were there. The extra 145 Euros we had paid for our comfort seats were well worth it; who needs business class?

We were let into the country by two officials who pointed out we had not filled in all the boxes on our landing card but they were nice about it and let us fill it in right there and then. Unlike our previous helly Delhi experience of less than a week ago, now it was mellow Delhi.

Rahul from the travel agency stood waiting for us with the yellow sign we had been told to look out for. He had bottles of water for us and a taxi on standby, then delivered us to the Visaya hotel which welcomed us to an enlightened experience. Page one of the guest services book is devoted to an explanation of visaya which has something to do with the soul’s spiritual function.

On the more material side, Rahul left us with a bag containing travelers’ advice, vouchers, our itinerary and other useful stuff. I think we get to keep the bag. It is made from several materials that India exports (jute, raffia, and silk) or turns into products we westerners want.